I take the glass, giving it a dubious sniff. “Thanks for that nightmare.”
“You’re welcome.”
Together, we toss the shots back; me shuddering delicately at the potency, while Ms. Crane swallows unflinchingly.
“I guess this is what the King’s fucktoy does.” The thought comes to me abruptly as I’m inspecting the bottom of my empty shot glass. “I guess it’s what my mom did.”
Ms. Crane barks a harsh, raspy laugh. “Don’t let that thundercunt fool you. She had her hands in more stews than you realize.”
Nodding, I note, “The Velvet Hideaway,” and rest my temple on my fist, spinning the glass. “But that was before, and this is…now. What’s a queen without her King?”
Ms. Crane pours us another shot. “A lot more powerful, historically speaking.” She taps her glass against mine and throws it back.
“Do you miss it?” I wonder, not missing the sneer on her mouth when she speaks of my mother. “Your girls, the business?”
“My girls,” she answers, sliding onto the stool beside me. There’s an uncharacteristic, soft sentimentality in her eyes, and it startles me to see it. It’s gone before I have a chance to dig into it. “But the business is business. Dicks come in hard and go out soft. Nothing there to miss.” She fills my shot glass and nudges it toward my hand. “Do you miss it?”
I give her a puzzled look. “Miss what?”
She nods towards the hallway. “Not being shackled to three insufferable jackasses.”
I pick up the glass, testing the weight in my hand. “I can’t remember a time I wasn’t shackled to one insufferable jackass or another,” I confess, thinking of being a child. Probably even then, some asshole had sway over my mother and quality of life. “But these three…they’re different.”
“I know they are.” She nods, eyes fixed to the far wall, as if lost in a memory. “My husband ran girls for Daniel sometimes, but he never did like him much. Used to tell me Daniel Payne would take his slice of South Side’s pie over his dead body.” She raises her glass in a casual toast. “But he’d come in a lot, you know. Daniel. It wasn’t always for business.” Her eyes slide to mine, brow arching. “A lot of men prefer ‘em young and dumb, but he always liked the most desperate girls best. The ones who’d do anything for a bag of dope. The girls with three kids and no boundaries. Then one day, he dumped this little shithead in my office. Asked me to look after him for a spell. Angry…” Her face contorts, head shaking. “Such an angry little shit, that Killian. I didn’t think someone so young could be so pissed off at the world. But there he was, barely eight years old, trying to punch a hole in my wall because his daddy was off nailing some dope-sick, lost cause.” There’s a tiredness in her eyes that’s probably older than I am. “I thought to myself, ‘well, here’s one more’。 One more boy who’s going to grow up and throw his hurt around, because no one ever taught him otherwise.” She meets my gaze, dipping her chin. “So I taught him otherwise.”
I wince, just imagining Killian as a tiny ball of fury. “What did you do?”
She shrugs. “Well, first, I slapped the absolute piss out of him.”
My jaw drops. “Ms. Crane!”
She flaps a hand dismissively. “Eh, you would have slapped him, too. Should have seen the look on his face when I did it. He was stunned stupid.” She lets out a little snicker, looking way too pleased at the memory. “But then I sat his spoiled ass down and asked him what the fuss was all about. And you know what he did?”
Wryly, I guess, “Talked back like a little jerk?”
But Ms. Crane shakes her head, frowning into her empty glass. “He cried.” My chest clenches at the words, but just as much as the way they’re spoken—gentle and hushed, as if it’s not something she ever wants to ridicule him for. “Oh, he tried really hard to be a man about it. His little lip was quivering. He tried so hard to hold it in. I put my arms around him and he couldn’t hold on to it anymore. I don’t think he’d been hugged in a long time.” She pours us each another shot, ignoring the shine of wetness in my eyes. “After that, he came every few days. He’d sit in my office and do his homework. He never was much of a talker, but he’d listen to me blather on about this and that. If he wasn’t being such a little fuckhead, I’d bring him cookies and milk.” She lets out a raspy laugh. “A few years later, he started bringing this other little shithead with him. Skin and bones, that one. He was angry, too, but it was a different kind of angry. Real quiet. The kind that makes you wonder if maybe he’s not quite right.”